Government paid charity to produce eco-town 'fact' leaflets

Gordon Brown's eco-towns scheme was embroiled in new controversy last night as a housing charity admitted it had been paid to produce information leaflets setting out the Government's case.

By Vikki Miller

12:59PM BST 06 Sep 2008

Shelter, one of the few organisations backing the plan to build new towns in the English countryside, said it had been given £100,000 by the Government to publish a series of 13 pamphlets, one for each proposed eco-town site.

Called "Eco-town – the facts", the publications are branded with the Shelter logo and claim to assess the impact the new homes will have in the different areas. Each one begins: "Shelter has written a series of leaflets to help clarify the facts."

But each 20-page leaflet focuses largely on the need for more affordable housing, with only one paragraph addressing such concerns as traffic levels, flood risks and pressure on public serices.

Opponents called the leaflets "Government propaganda" and accused ministers of trying to mislead the public into thinking the information came from an independent source.

Kate Gordon, a senior planner at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said the booklets were one-sided and did not address the most controversial issues about eco-towns. She said: "What is particularly significant is what Shelter leaves out of their leaflets. The briefing massively plays down environmental implications, loss of productive farmland, flooding issues."

Related Articles

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that Shelter met with Government officials in June to discuss the leaflets. It was agreed that the officials would provide statistics and contacts, as well as advising the charity about any future reworking of relevant policies. In return, Shelter said it would provide the Government with updates on the progress of the leaflets and the dates on which they would be published.

Four of the booklets are now on the Shelter website, with nine more expected next month. A thousand printed copies of each are being sent to local doctors' surgeries, Women's Institutes and Citizen Advice Bureaux.

The only indication of Government involvement comes on the back page, where it is stated in small print: "This leaflet has been produced with the support of the Department for Communities and Local Government."

Shelter has been given a further £50,000 by the Government to organise seven public debates where supporters and opponents of eco-towns will air their views.

Once a pet project of Gordon Brown, eco-towns have increasingly become a thorn in the Prime Minister's side. The policy was one of the first he announced after taking over from Tony Blair a year ago, but recently he has avoided speaking publicly about it, amid widespread public opposition.

Ministers intend to give the go-ahead to 10 eco-towns, but since a shortlist of 16 proposals was published by the Government in April, several developers have pulled out.

Vocal protest groups have sprung up against eight of the proposals, and at the end of this month campaigners will light beacons at each site in a show of solidarity.

Eco-towns are intended to be low-energy, carbon-neutral developments of between 5,000 and 20,000 homes, constructed from "green" materials. Five are supposed to be built by 2016 with the rest completed by 2020 -- the first new towns built in Britain since the Sixties.

However, senior civil servants have privately warned ministers that the plans are not sufficiently environmentally-friendly, and have advised that only two or three of the projects should proceed.

The news comes after supermarket giant Tesco revealed it had withdrawn plans for a 6,700 home eco-town in Cambridgeshire, which had attracted strong local opposition.

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps said: "It's clearly very odd to see the Government funding leaflets which appear to directly mirror its own line on eco-towns.

"Now this apparently-friendless project has been given a voice, via thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money being paid directly to a charity, in order to provide backing for the Government's flawed approach."

Matthew Sinclair, from the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Taxpayers expect their money to be spent on frontline services, not wasted on government propaganda. For the Department to use a charity as a front-group is a deeply disturbing attempt to mislead the public into thinking they were being informed by an independent voice."

Adam Sampson, chief executive of Shelter, said: "Shelter supports the concept of eco-towns as we believe they will provide much-needed homes for local people, especially affordable housing. However, each proposal must be tested on its own merits following full and proper public consultation, which is why Shelter is producing these booklets and organising the public workshops."

A spokesperson for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "It is the Government's duty to ensure the public in these areas of housing need are being provided with factual information so they can take an informed view on the eco-town proposals. The reports were commissioned from Shelter, who had full editorial control. They do not recommend that eco-towns are built in these areas, but do give factual information to help people have their say on whether a eco-town is the best solution to meet the housing challenges in their neighbourhood."